


Warmth

by cgf_kat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Langst, Post Series, Whump, plance, plangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:36:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: Lance and Pidge join Captain Olia and her crew for an impromptu mission that goes horribly awry, leaving Lance in the clutches of a shady group of scientists and with no idea what happened to Pidge.
Relationships: Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rueitae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rueitae/gifts).



Honey eyes, peering over the top of those ridiculous green glasses Pidge has taken to wearing. Ridiculous, yes, but Lance loves them. Her laughing smile, frozen in time in the small picture, spreads warmth through his cold limbs. 

When they come for him, he keeps it hidden in the tattered remains of his flight suit — the only pillow they’ve left him with in the tiny cell. The flimsy hospital-gown like material they’ve given him to wear does nothing for heat, the thin pants and shirt almost no barrier at all from the cold floor.

Maybe they don’t want to waste better material. They keep having to give him new clothes when the ones he’s wearing tear and become soaked in blood. 

Lance shivers, his harsh breath one of very few sounds in the dim, empty lab, accompanied only by soft beeps and intermittent droning from the equipment. Some of the beeps come from his own chest and neck, from small round monitoring devices stuck to his skin to monitor his vital signs. He’s tried to get them off, more out of spite than anything, but it’s been useless. 

He trails a thumb over Pidge’s face, back and forth, as if the action will make her appear or keep him from shaking apart. 

It hurts. The shivers down his spine, radiating through his body, shake through his broken leg and bruises scattered across his torso, and pull at the edges of the gash down one of his shoulders. He can’t stop the involuntary movement when the cold has seeped to his core. 

***

They never should have split up with the other rebels — Alliance members? There was no one to rebel against anymore, but it was hard to break old habits of thinking of them that way. 

They should have stayed together. The old Blade outpost was supposed to be empty, but Lance knew something felt...off. They shouldn’t have gone into the dark jungle around the outpost alone. He should have known. Was he getting rusty? 

“This is the last time I do a favor for Keith,” he mumbled under his breath. 

An elbow in his side told him in no uncertain terms to hush, Pidge glaring daggers at him from beside him. Not that it mattered. With their helmets on no one could hear them; the rustling of the vines that covered the outcropping of rock they were hidden behind was more of a danger.

“You could have stayed home,” she teased quietly.

“And let you come out here by yourself a month before our wedding?”

“I wouldn’t have been by myself.”

Lance let out a breath as he huddled closer, wincing at the lights seeping around the edge of their rock — thin greenish beams that didn’t belong to their colleagues. 

“Not the point…”

His hands stayed on his rifle, ready, a finger near the trigger, but they itched to hold onto Pidge, to keep her close. Her shoulder pressed into his back as he kept watch, the warmth reassuring. 

“I know,” Pidge said. The fondness in her voice made him smile.

He just wanted to be with her. Why not go on a mission for the first time in a while if he could avoid missing her for a couple of weeks?

People had been disappearing here. There were fruits in that jungle used by a nearby population on this planet, but in recent months it had turned into a strange black hole. The Blades, still stretched thin as they rebuilt their ranks, hadn’t had a chance to respond to the reports. When the natives finally begged for help, well…

What better job to give a couple of former paladins and a handful of bored rebels with no one to fight? Captain Olia and her crew were more than happy to lend their ship and their help to check out the area, what with the Atlas so busy with diplomacy. 

They were expecting some trouble, maybe, but not this. Not the sudden blow out of nowhere and the flash that cuts off Pidge’s smile in his memory and then— 

***

It’s the last clear memory he has. There’s more, jumbled and rushed, but he’s always been alone in this cell, in this lab, wherever he is and he can’t remember…

Where is Pidge? Is she safe? Is she here somewhere? Is she…?

Lance coughs, swiping shakily at his eyes as he pushes the thoughts away. A fresh jolt of pain down his leg squeezes tears free, as he tries to shift to relieve the pressure on his hip from the hard floor. 

Is he even on the same planet anymore? Surely if they were just keeping people somewhere in that outpost he would have been found by now? Everyone at the Garrison on Earth knew where they were going.

It doesn’t help anything when the lights through the lab snap on, startling Lance into another sudden movement. He tries not to moan aloud, but he can’t help it. At the far end of the lab, the aliens that have been holding him here shuffle in, all rumpled lab coats and bleary morning glares, as if this is all normal. They’re a motley crew — a female Olkari and a yellow-gold male of what he’s pretty sure is Nyma’s species. A couple of other species he doesn’t recognize. 

He shoves the small picture of Pidge back into the torn folds of the flight suit under his head before anyone notices it.

“Think we’ve left those wounds long enough?” Gold Guy asks, glancing briefly over at Lance. 

The ring leader - a tall blue female - shrugs. “Yeah, probably. Let’s see how they do.”

The Olkari pipes up, hesitant. “Uhm...don’t forget to set the leg before you try healing it.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

The blue one is the only one with any real scientific acumen, Lance has been able to gather. Except for the Olkari, who has some but seems reluctant. The others are just goonies, he thinks, and there must be more elsewhere outside the lab - whoever attacked them.

They don’t come for him right away, turning on computers and equipment first and brewing something that smells a little like coffee. Not that they’ve ever given him any. The same routine they go through every morning for...how long?

Except for the first day, it all blurs together. 

***

“Where is Pidge! What did you do with her!”

He woke up here, in this cell, his wrists cuffed behind him around one of the bars, and she was nowhere to be seen. Just a sterile white and gray lab and no answers. The blue alien and the Olkari leaning over him and a ringing in his head that was slowly fading. 

“...device seems to have taken care of the concussion and lacerations easily enough in this species,” one of them was saying. “We can move forward with other tests.”

“Where is the other person I was with? Where is she!”

They ignored him, talking among themselves about something he didn’t care to make out just then, but that was when Lance saw the tears in his suit...and that there were no wounds under them. There was blood on the fabric and on his skin, but nothing else. Like waking up in a healing pod, except a healing pod usually cleaned away the blood, too. 

And if they’d been hit with some kind of charge, shouldn’t he feel a lot worse than he did? Parts of him felt sore, but— 

That was when the blue one grabbed his face. “You. How does your head feel?”

Lance jerked his chin away. “Like I’m going to answer that? Who are you!”

Gold Guy leaned in, brandishing a short knife. “Look, we can make this easier on you, or we can NOT. Answer the question.”

Lance just glared, already short of air. He was all but expecting what came next, but with his mind still clearing he almost didn’t register the sudden movement until knife was buried in his thigh. 

He shouted, yanking on the restraints, waiting for the agony to fade, but the knife stayed where it was. Gold Guy was tugging down on the edge of the wound and twisting.

It made it hard to hear them, even though they were so close. 

“I’d listen to him if I were you,” the blue alien was saying. “He’s not as nice as me.”

Gold Guy smirked. “You’re nice?” 

The Olkari was protesting. “What are you doing! We don’t even have monitoring devices on him yet!” She almost seemed to care. 

Blue Lady shrugged. “We’ll put some on before we heal anything else. We’ve got plenty of time to run tests.” She leaned into Lance’s face, pushing down on Gold Guy’s hand and the handle of the knife. “He needs to know how this is going to work. When we ask questions, you answer them? Got it?”

Lance could barely get a breath, much less answer, but he gasped out what he could. “Get...quiznaked.”

They didn’t seem to like that.

***

When they swarm his cell Lance still tries to match them glare for glare, like he does every morning. Every time. 

They crowd into the cell to surround him, but they don’t bother cuffing him. They haven’t for a while. He doesn’t have the energy to make holding him still difficult anymore, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t fight. They make it harder on him for it, but at least he’s doing something. 

“Get off…!” They aren’t going to listen. He knows they won’t, but it comes out anyway. 

His torso groans at him for twisting and pulling, all sharp aches and burning pain, but it’s nothing compared to when they get a good enough grasp on his leg to set it properly. 

They don’t take precautions. No warning him, nothing for the pain. Everything blurs out for a minute or two, his own scream echoing in his ears. By the time he can focus again they’re halfway through healing the break, the Olkari hovering over him with the gun-shaped healing device they’ve been holding him here to test. The pain in his leg is fading, but everything else still hurts. The device is for focused healing, and of course they’ve never bothered to use it on any of the collateral damage they’ve caused manhandling him.

“You’re contaminating your healing data, you know,” he told them once. After Gold Guy kicked him a few times, frustrated he still wasn’t answering their questions. “I know a lot of scientists; I know these things.”

It only earned him another foot in his rib cage, but it was worth it.

The Olkari was the only one who’d given him any kind of answers, lingering behind after the others had left for the night. 

“Our planets were destroyed or devastated by the war. We need resources to start over, and no one’s ever been able to perfect a portable version of a healing device - nothing as powerful as the healing pods the Alteans have. Do you know how much this will be worth?”

Lance just stared at her. “There are better ways to do it!”

She shook her head, answering tersely. “It would take too long, and no one would volunteer for this.” For a moment she almost seemed to feel guilty, her gaze skipping over the dislocated shoulder he was cradling at the time. 

He scoffed. “You’ve got that right. What’s wrong with time? The Olkari are doing fine on Altea for now, why—?”

“We need our OWN planet. So we can truly rebuild. Your own people have had to rebuild; don’t you understand that?”

“The feelings, yeah, sure, but I don’t understand how you can justify doing this to someone!” Lance snapped back. “And I haven’t been the only one, have I? What happened to the people who disappeared near here? Or near the base where we ran into you, if we’re not there? Whatever.”

He didn’t get an answer. He didn’t get to ask about Pidge again. She glared and walked away and she hasn’t spoken directly to him since. 

The monitors across his skin are beeping, sending data to the pad the blue alien is holding. Telling them how well it’s working. His resolve not to answer their questions hasn’t broken, but they must get enough from their instruments to keep going.

The Olkari pushes quickly to her feet as she shuts off the healing device, responding sharply to something Blue Lady said. Lance doesn’t make it out over focusing on his leg, carefully moving it and flexing the muscles and trying to assure himself it’s all right now. They haven’t touched the shoulder wound, and he can’t remember if that was even a test. 

Gold Guy doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. He yanks Lance to his feet before he can really get his bearings. 

“Hey!” He hisses, his shoulder burning. At least his leg doesn’t give out. It twinges when he stumbles into putting weight on it for the first time, but seems solid enough. 

Blue Lady and the Olkari are still arguing in hushed tones. 

Lance can make out enough to make his blood freeze. 

“That...never worked! We have enough—”

  
“...have to...rid of him anyway.”

What?

No no no...he tries to pull away from Gold Guy on instinct, but the fingers digging into his arms are too tight. His strength has been failing him for days; did he really expect it to be any better now?

They’re all looking at him. The Olkari is shaking her head about something, but Blue Lady isn’t listening anymore. She isn’t keeping her voice down anymore. 

“Did you think the others all died by accident?”

“They died because you took it too far!” the Olkari fumes. 

A shrug. She smiles strangely at Lance. “Might as well gather as much data as we can. We can’t have anyone left to tell the market how we tested.”

Lance falls back a step into Gold Guy, his breath hitching when one of the other lab assistants hands the blue alien something like a spear through the bars of the cell. 

“Y-You don’t have to…” He runs out of air before he can finish the sentence.

They were supposed to find him before now. He was supposed to be out of here by now. 

“Don’t worry,” she says, hefting the weapon. “We’ll still try to heal you. Who knows; maybe it’ll work. We’ve improved the design. It’ll be worth more if we can claim it helps with life-threatening injuries, after all.”

Another step back. He lands on a foot, and Gold Guy shoves him off. 

He’s free but still trapped in a cell with a crazy alien coming at him with a weapon. He has nowhere to go.

_Pidge…_

“Where is she?” he demands, desperate. “Where is Pidge? A-at least tell me that!”

Blue Lady opens her mouth as if she might answer, but it never comes. She advances on him again and when he steps back one more Lance thinks, at first, that he stops because Gold Guy...punched him in the back?

But his legs are dropping out from under him and he doesn’t know why. It wasn’t that bad, was it? But— 

His knees hit the ground.

It hurts now. 

His hands find the tip of the spear-like weapon protruding from his stomach before he sees it, and Blue Lady is putting down her own weapon and Gold Guy is laughing behind him, and he knows what happened. 

Vaguely. Almost as if he’s watching from far away. 

He starts to have strange thoughts like...will they just watch him die, or leave him alone long enough that he can get to the picture hidden in his suit? 

Oh wait, she said they’d try to heal him, didn’t she?

But she also said she’d make sure to kill him anyway.

_Pidge!_ A spark of alarm as he gasps through the pain making its’ way into his consciousness.

_I’m sorry..._

Lance thinks for a moment that he can hear Pidge calling to him. 

But then the spear tip disappears, and a fresh wave of agony sends him toppling over some kind of ledge in his mind he didn’t even know he was on, and the questions and the seeds of panic are fading with everything else.

***

The feeling of falling yanks Lance back to awareness, but more the sort of sense one has in a dream. Like he didn’t fall far or it was all in his head. The ceiling of the cell is blurry above him and…

“Lance? Lance!”

He isn’t on the floor. For the first time in what feels like forever, it isn’t the hard coldness of the floor under his back. An arm cradles his head, a knee under his back. 

“Lance!”

He makes out the familiar honey eyes first. Then the worry in them. 

“P—” His throat is dry, the words trapped. 

Pidge smiles down at him, but it looks strained. “I’m right here. It’s okay, it’s okay; we’re working on you.”

Another voice, the Olkari leaned over him beside Pidge, talking almost to herself. “I have the wound sealed in the back so at least we’re only working with one open wound, but I can’t seal the front until enough of the internal damage is repaired. That’s assuming it can be healed quickly enough and the blade didn’t hit too many things that are important…”

The slight warmth of the healing device’s beam is spread over his torso, and maybe he should be surprised that the Olkari is helping them, but he isn’t. 

He winces at her assessment, but Pidge rests a hand against his cheek so he’ll look back to her. “Hey, you’ll be fine. You’ve got a wedding in a week and I’m pretty sure you haven’t even written your vows.”

Lance swallows until he’s more sure he can speak. “Didn’t...didn’t miss it?”

She smiles again, and this time it reaches her eyes. “You’re not getting out of it.”

He snorts, but that hurts. “Ahhhhooohhkay. Ow. Anyway, I was...gonna wing it.”

Pidge almost laughs. “YOU can’t wing it; I was gonna wing it. We can’t both wing it.”

“...why not?”

The Olkari interrupts, nudging Pidge. “I think it’s going to work,” she murmurs.

Lance thinks, maybe, that she’s right. The sensation of pain fading has become familiar. The feeling of being almost whole again is something he recognizes now. 

Pidge laughs now, in relief. When she lets her forehead drift down against his, she’s answering his question. “Because knowing us, that would be a disaster.”

He smiles, reaching to draw unsteady fingers through her hair. “-t’s probably...what everyone expects anyway. Give the people what they want.” She’s still laughing, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s heard in...what’s apparently been weeks. “I missed you…”

The Olkari woman is starting to close the wound, which means it is working. He’s going to be fine, right? So why does Pidge’s laughter dissolve into tears?

“Pidge?”

“I missed you too. I’m sorry.” She pulls away enough to swipe at her eyes. “I’m sorry it took so long for us to find you and get in here. I couldn’t remember anything after the blast. Olia and the others got to me in time to run them off before they could grab both of us, but they said you were gone and they didn’t know which way they went, and we needed backup and—”

“Pidge, Pidge, you’re babbling. Hey, it doesn’t matter…”

Pidge has to make room for the Olkari to get to the gash across his shoulder, but Lance squeezes her hand to reassure her until the wound is healed and they’re alone again. Or as alone as they can be with Garrison personnel swarming the lab outside the cell, presumably gathering evidence and equipment and taking the other scientists and techs and goons into custody. 

He’s able to catch the eyes of the Olkari woman before they lead her away. She nods slightly when mouths his thanks. 

“You’re okay?” Pidge is asking. She’s looking him over like she’s afraid they missed something. “It worked?”

Lance winces as she helps him sit up. The serious wounds are gone and the bruises that were near them have disappeared, but there are more. Tender places and smaller cuts. He still feels weak and shaky. 

“I’m not skewered anymore, anyway.”

“Good.” She latches her arms around his neck, all but pulling herself into his lap.

“Oof! Yeah…” He doesn’t mind at all, holding on tight and breathing in her scent, soaking in her warmth and the comforting sensation of her fingers in his hair and her heart beating against his. 

“They wouldn’t tell me what happened to you,” he murmurs. Tears are building behind his eyelids against his will.

Well. His turn, then. 

“I-I didn’t know...they wouldn’t tell me where you were. I…”

Slightly chapped lips kiss the first of the tears from his face, tickling where they brush. “I’m right here,” Pidge whispers.

Lance is shivering again, but this time he knows he won’t shake apart. He has everything he needs to stay together, right here. All the warmth he could ever want. “I love you,” he breathes.

“I love you, too.” 


End file.
